All the Colors of the Rainbow
by painted.inkblot
Summary: He had only ever had black, black and silver and gray and green. But he needed more. He needed all the colors of the rainbow. Oneshot.


**A/N: Insert comment about so many ideas in my head here.**

**Disclaimer: I certainly don't think I'm JK Rowling, so neither should you.**

* * *

**All the Colors of the Rainbow**

* * *

Ever since he had first really been aware of the paintings in his family's house at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Regulus had painted. He couldn't think of anything else he liked more than painting.

Regulus's parents were proud of his talent for art. They told him that painting was a noble skill to have, and that he could become well known with his skill. He could paint members of pureblood families. He could paint well known wizards and witches. His mother told him that one day she would like to have a portrait of herself in the house, and that she would be honored if her dear Regulus would paint it. She rarely gave her sons compliments, so Regulus had let this one stay in his head for a while, to make him beam when he was sad. Sirius often glared at him whenever he received praise, but otherwise he was very proud of Regulus's talent as well, and would often brag about him to their cousins Andromeda, Bellatrix, and Narcissa when they came visiting.

When Regulus first started painting, the only paint he could find was black, so his paintings stayed black and white. One day, while looking outside the window of the house, he saw one of the Muggle neighbors carrying something huge and rectangular to his house. The Muggle propped it up against the door, and Regulus glimpsed it right before the Muggle picked it up again and opened the door, carrying it into the house.

It had been a painting. But oddly, it wasn't only in black. It had all the colors of the rainbow, from red to purple and everything general and specific in between.

Regulus wondered if that was even possible or allowed, for paintings to be colorful. All the paintings he'd ever done or seen had been black, sometimes green and silver because they were Slytherin colors.

He went to his mother, who was in the parlor. "Mother," he said, "Mother, I saw a very strange painting just now. It wasn't black and it had lots of colors, like red, blue, orange, purple, turquoise, green, and yellow. Why don't we have any colorful paints? Can we get some?"

Walburga Black sniffed. "Why ever would you want such bright colors in your paintings, dear? They hurt the eyes. Besides, black is a noble color, and it represents our family. Black is a pure color, just like us. Remember, were are _toujours pur_, Regulus."

Sighing, Regulus nodded. "I – I understand, Mother," he murmured.

He went back into his room and continued his all-black painting, trying not to imagine images of his pictures with bright colors in his head.

------

Regulus had brought his papers, paints, and paintbrushes – in short, all his art equipment – to Hogwarts, but soon discovered that it was far better in his peers' eyes to like Quidditch than something like _painting_. None of his roommates explained why, but Regulus guessed art was "girly".

Regulus had never been much of a resister, of an independent mind. He thought Quidditch was okay, so he pretended to obsess over it like everyone else, to get everyone off his back. He even made reserve seeker in his second year. In his third year, he became the seeker because the former seeker had graduated.

Meanwhile, Regulus's painting equipment lie in a forgotten corner of his trunk gathering dust.

Besides the year Regulus was made _the_ seeker of the Slytherin Quidditch team, not just the reserve, third year was also the first year Hogwarts students went to Hogsmeade. 

Everyone else in his dormitory had been twittering for the past weeks about Honeyduke's, Zonko's, and all the other well known shops of Hogsmeade. Regulus didn't particularly care about ordinary chocolate or annoying pranks that tried too hard to be funny.

"Where do you want to go to in Hogsmeade, Regulus?" one of his dorm-mates, Henry Dolohov, asked.

Regulus glanced at his trunk, at one of the far corners. Something in his stomach turned over.

"I – I fancy looking at one of the Quidditch shops," he almost gasped out, his voice faltering.

Henry nodded and turned to another third year. 

Regulus wondered if there were any art shops in Hogsmeade.

------

There was. It sat right next to a Gladrags Wizarding Clothes store, with paint sets in the windows and fancy parchments and paintbrushes, with the words "Pingit's Art Supplies" emblazoned across its front.

Ordinarily, Regulus would have rolled his eyes at the slight tackiness – pingit meant is painting in Latin – but that day he ignored it and rushed in without a second thought. There would be other paint colors besides black…

He entered, unnoticed by the other witches and wizards milling about in the shop. But as soon as he entered, he was blinded. _The colors_, oh, the colors! All his life Regulus had lived surrounded by every different type of green one could imagine, and silvers and grays and especially blacks. He had become so used to these colors that by the time he came to Hogwarts, he would simply imagine his surroundings in these colors in his head, and they would seem very real. 

But the colors in this art shop didn't allow themselves to be painted over with green, silver, gray, and black. They wanted to be seen as the colors they had been made – all the colors of the rainbow and more.

Regulus rubbed his eyes and blinked furiously, holding back any tears that could soon come.

The third year Slytherin spent as little time possible as he could in the shop, staying just long enough to buy an ordinary set of watercolors, so he had all the general colors and the means with which to mix them to make the more specific ones.

As he left the shop, Regulus gazed at the spotless white set in the small bag as if it was a priceless miracle. Still staring at it, he could hardly believe it. It was art, art with all the colors of the rainbow.

Regulus wasn't staring at it as if it was a priceless miracle. He _was_ staring at a priceless miracle.

------

Regulus paced this way and that in a corridor on the seventh floor in Hogwarts. Inside his robe pockets sat his papers, watercolors, and brushes, magically shrunken. He had the means, but he couldn't do anything. He couldn't use his watercolors in the Slytherin common room, and he wouldn't dream of doing it in say, an abandoned classroom, and certainly not on the Hogwarts grounds where even more people would be than in the Slytherin common room. He needed some place where he wouldn't fear of people laughing at him for his interest, or a place where someone would forever be looking over his shoulder. He needed– 

Wait…had that door always been there?

His curiosity aroused, Regulus opened the door and slipped in, letting it close without a sound beside him. In front of him lie the perfect place. No one was there. There were towels and nice tables and chairs that looked like they were covered with those self-washing charms that even some of the best witches and wizards couldn't perform. It was also small, the perfect size for one person.

Why had Regulus never seen this place before, or anyone else ever either?

But suddenly he remembered some of Sirius the Blood Traitor's teases, when he boasted he'd been everywhere you could be in Hogwarts. He'd talked – discreetly – about something like this place. Regulus could still remember Sirius the Blood Traitor saying it: "And we have a place that knows just what we want…"

Regulus had assumed Sirius the Blood Traitor had been talking about the kitchens or maybe the – Regulus suppressed a shudder – Gryffindor Common Room.

But no, they must have been talking about this place, because surely there wasn't just a random art room placed in the middle of Hogwarts. "knows just what we want…" Perhaps it changed to someone's wishes? Yes, that must have been it.

Regulus pulled out his shrunken art supplies and enlarged them back to their original sizes. He laid out his paper and his paintbrushes on the table, and with delicate, careful hands he put the watercolor set next to the paper, not letting even the tiniest sound escape when placing it on the table.

With equal gentleness he opened the set for the first time, and ogled the round pools of watercolors, his eyes almost glued to the sight. After a few moments, he remembered he was there to paint and not to stare, so he sat down. Just as he did so, however, his eyes widened. He had forgotten a cup and water! 

Then he noticed, behind him, cups stacked on a shelf next to a sink. Regulus, though relieved, also wasn't too surprised. After filling a cup about halfway with crystal clear water, he returned to his seat. 

What to paint? Regulus looked through a window, and saw the sun beginning to set, and decided he might as well paint a sunset.

He took the divided up bottom of the watercolor set that had been made for mixing colors and wetting the tip of his brush, took some red, yellow, and orange, and began mixing.

By the time Regulus was done, the sunset was long gone and distant stars twinkled in the sky outside. 

The sunset was beautiful and Regulus knew it. But it wasn't him. He wasn't yellow and red and orange and pink and sunsets. He was gray and green and silver.

He was black, pure black.

_Toujours pur, Regulus, dear._

He stared at the sunset again and instantly looked away. It was too bright, it was too cheerful and hopeful, and too not-him.

Regulus wrapped his arms around the picture of the sunset, despite some parts still being a tiny bit damp. He wanted it, he wanted it so badly, but – but he just couldn't.

_You're black, Regulus, and you can only be black. Toujours pur, Regulus, toujours pur…_

Toujours pur…

Shuddering, Regulus crumpled the painting and tore it in pieces and threw it out the small window.

He was black, and even he couldn't change it.

Then, without thinking, Regulus tore off a bit of another piece of paper he had. Dipping his brush in the water, he put it in the red first and dabbed it onto the paper. Then came orange, then yellow, then green, then blue, then purple. Almost by themselves they formed the colors that came in between, making a beautiful flow of color, a flow that just felt _so right._

Instantly, his hands filled with the urge to tear it apart, but somehow Regulus restrained it. He didn't need a shrinking spell, it fit in his robe pocket as it was. All his other art equipment, he threw out the window to leave to the same fate as the sunset picture. He just couldn't bear to be in the presence of such colorful art; he just couldn't. 

When he got back to the common room, he took the slip of paper out of his pocket and put it in a small pocket in his trunk. It lie there almost forgotten until Regulus returned to Number 12, Grimmauld Place for Christmas Holidays. He took out the flowing color paper and slid it behind some Quidditch and Slytherin posters, where no one would think to look.

Though Regulus couldn't have all his beloved colors of the rainbow, he would get as close to it as he could.

* * *

**A/N: Constructive criticism appreciated.**


End file.
